


Cataclysm

by sophieisonfire



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Sad, Shit, be warned i don't write nice happy fics, car crash, you know when you just wanna write really sad stuff for such a great couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3192080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophieisonfire/pseuds/sophieisonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A car crash. One broken boyfriend. The other breaking.</p><p>'You always said life wasn't like romantic novels Rin but this, this is a fucking tragedy. Even for you.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cataclysm

Rin knew he was screaming Makoto's name. He could feel it in his throat, it felt more like broken glass escaping rather than words. But, he couldn't hear it, it was just white noise in his ears. White noise similar to the harsh white walls and flooring of the hospital corridor. White like sheets on the gurney moving faster away from him than he could swim. White, the colour of his knuckles as he clung to Sousuke's sleeve that covered the arm he was using to hold Rin back. God only knows what he would do otherwise.

There was a slight moment of silence as Makoto and the crowd of frenzied doctors disappeared through the heavy double doors. The loud clash of closing signaling their leave. And then he could hear it, his jagged, coarse, desperate crying. It got louder and louder as Rin fell to his knees, as if he'd been waiting to erupt until after Makoto wasn't there, as if the unconscious 'in-critical-condition' boy could possibly hear him. 

~

He listens to jazz. And now I listen to jazz too. You look at him and you think _'this boy does not look like he listens to jazz'_ and yet I can't recall a time since I started dating Rin that the air of my small apartment hadn't been filled with the soul-clenching music that I had grown to love just like the red head who lay beside me. I woke up to him for the first time today yet it felt like I'd been waking up next to him for years. 

Last night we decided to do it. I mean,  _really_ do it. I had yearned for his touch and his taste for so long that when it finally came I couldn't quite believe it. Even now, I'm still dazed and in awe that I could be in love with such a beautiful enigma that I'd spent months trying to unravel but kept discovering new things along the way. My own personal mystery and I was the detective turned lover. One night I had come home. Yes, _home_. I had never called it a home until Rin moved in with me and then it felt like the space we shared needed to be called a home, because that's what he made it. I had come through the door to the hallway where the lights were on and the bedroom door cracked open just enough the see that the lights inside there were turned on too. I didn't think he could possibly be awake because Rin doesn't stay awake. Rin sleeps. A lot. I tread gingerly along the plush carpet as if the hall lamps were spotlights and I was a burglar about to be caught red handed. 

When I said Rin slept a lot. I was right. He was wrapped amongst our crisp white sheets with only a few tufts of hair appearing letting me know he was actually there. And he was snoring, not an in your face, oh-my-god-i'll-never-get-any-sleep snore, but one that's just enough noise to gently drift you into unconsciousness. Rather endearing in my opinion. But maybe that's because I was madly in love with him. Anyway, I had turned of all the lights and slipped into bed with him, my face nuzzling into his warm neck and my arms find their way around his bare torso, skin on skin, it always manages to drive me wild. And when I woke, and I questioned him over our favourite cereal and cheap filter coffee he told me that sometimes he gets scared of the dark when he's on his own and can only sleep with the lights on. I had to kiss him. Who wouldn't kiss their significant other after being told something so gut-wrenchingly adorable. I was forever learning new things about him. I was forever falling in love.

 _'I am in love'_ I thought, sipping my coffee, the morning sunlight breaking through the blinds, illuminating his blushing face.  _I am in love, and it is right, and I am happy._

_~_

_'It is very touch and go Mr. Matsuoka, his condition is very critical and the best we can do is stabilize him and pray.'_ or  _'Time is what we need, please be patient, go home and rest' 'No sir, we don't know when he'll wake up'_ I'm sorry _this_ and I'm sorry _that_ , oh please do try to be _rational_ about this. This constant bullshit was being drip fed to me by every doctor in this damn hospital. I just wanted a straight answer. I wanted my boyfriend. Safe. Healthy. Alive. 

It has been two weeks since I got the call from his mum, a sloppy message barely audible through the sobs over the phone. I hadn't done much else other than sit right here on this uncomfortable grey cushioned chair next to Makoto's hospital bed. I would supplement myself with coffee from the vending machine down the hall and I would go home to shower and then I would be right back. Because I couldn't leave him. Because I was scared. They'd turned my handsome, brilliant lover into a lifeless machine. Tubes and bags and more tubes and monitors and the constant beeping which at first drove me insane but I grew to be dependent on it. To keep me sane. He was functioning through medical science and I was scared he would never function on his own again.

I leaned forward a little, the cushion squeaking beneath me, and I took Mako's pale, yet warm hand into my own, rubbing circles over the knuckle of his thumb just the way he likes it whenever he needs to be reassured, to be calmed down. I didn't know if he was hurting or upset or could hear me as I told him stories he'd heard a thousand times to pass the days away. But if he could I know he'd appreciate it. A couple of tears rolled down my cheek which was strange, because I thought I couldn't possible cry anymore, but I guess we all have ways of surprising ourselves.  _Please wake up, goddammit, wake up already!_

Through my hazy, water logged eyes I look at him and he is still as radiant as I remember but under his skin lies an icy threat of death that I try to deceive myself from believing is there. His brown, soft hair is growing out, he said he needed it cut but then I guess car crashes stop you from doing those kinds of things. A few strands had entangled themselves with his eyelashes and I wanted so desperately to brush them away and trace his jawline with my fingertips and kiss him but I could't bring myself to do it. He was fine china and I was the kid who smashes it by trying to admire it. So I've kept my distance. 

Every 5 minutes past the hour, the nurses come in and do their routine thing and they look at my with pity and I wish they didn't because pity means it won't get any better. They tell me I should leave to eat and to rest, they joke that they'll have to take me in soon enough if I don't start taking care of myself. God, I wish they would shut up. 

_I've been so carefully crafted by you Mako, and now without you, I think I'm coming undone._

_~_

 

I wake up in a sweat, my chest hurts and I've forgotten how to breathe properly, my whole body tingles with this sensation that I'll never forget as long as I live. I had that nightmare again.

I was shaking, until I felt those familiar arms wrap around my waist and the soft cooing of his deep voice and warm breath in the shell of my ear. I was shaking and then Rin was there and I wasn't shaking anymore. He's done it so many times, he's told me same things over and over again. That it's ok and I'm safe. Relax and remember to breathe. We had our routine. He still manages to make it feel like I'm seeing the sunrise for the first time. Every time. 

It takes me a while to fully calm down and I always apologise profusely even though he runs his long fingers through my hair and kisses me in all the spots that let me know I am his and he is going to take care of me. I have never felt so safe than when I am in his arms and I can rest my cheek against his chest and listen to his steady heart beat and he's holding my hand and doing the thing I love most, rubbing circles into the skin over my knuckle. I'd like to believe that if I was ever on my death bed he'd do this for me because he knows me and I am thankful for that every second of every day. I am so thankful for you Rin. 

~ 

It's been three months, one week and 5 days. Let me tell you it hasn't gotten any better. I had to say it to myself in the mirror as I looked at the hollow shell of a man I'd become.  _This isn't a movie, you might not get your happy ending, accept that._ Of course I couldn't fucking accept it. What man lies to himself and says he's accepted that the love of his life may never wake up. Idiots who don't deserve them, that's who. I am not that idiot. 

Honestly though, my drugged up, tube fed, coma boyfriend looks healthier than I do. My eyes are dark from days on end without sleep, flinching at the slightest sign my miracle has been given. It's only fair to believe that a person get's one miracle in their lifetime right? No questions asked, here it is, take it but don't expect another. Every time I'm disappointed. No miracle. 

I've lost weight because the thought of food makes me sick. The thought of doing anything other than sitting in that prison cell of a hospital room - the repetitive beep of the machine drumming in my brain - makes me feel sick. Haru came to visit the other day and I realised I wasn't the only one who gave a shit. A lot of people gave a shit, actually. 

 _'You've got to stop this Rin. It's not healthy.'_ here came the lecture.  _'Quite frankly, it's selfish. It's not heroic or romantic to kill yourself slowly, it's not an act of love to sit here and rot from the inside out, because Makoto wouldn't want that. You know that.'_ I was left speechless. _'You really think he wants to see your wilted face when he wake up Rin?'_ and then he left. 

I knew it was true. I'm destroying myself and I don't know how to stop. I want to blame Makoto. How shitty of me.  _I love you but why can't you wake up so I can stop crying myself to sleep wondering if I'll ever have a life with you again - maybe if you finally died I could stop sitting here suffering on this chair every day_ kind of shitty. I have become a person I can only despise and look at in disgust. I am selfish. I need saving. Save me Makoto.

~

There was a faint beeping noise and then it grew louder and suddenly it was the only thing I could register. I wanted to open my eyes but there was some kind of internal instinct telling me to keep them closed. Eventually they fluttered open to be abused by harsh faded yellow light until they had adjusted and I realised where I was.  _Crap._ I struggled for breath and tried to sit up but was held captive by a mess of tubes and I was panicked. I was more than panicked I was frantic and desperate and then before I knew it there were nurses and there were doctors and they were saying things to me that sounded like I was underwater and I had the feeling I was drowning and there wasn't anyone here would rub my knuckle and tell me it's all in my head.

But that ended and I could breathe again and I wasn't a man made of tubes anymore but there were still a few that lingered. My head pounded as it lay against the plush pillow of the hospital bed. A car crash. That's what they told me. I was driving to the local swimming club for my work experience shift, I taught young children to swim because that's how I give back to this world. I teach. Those who can't do, teach, right? Well that's me. There was a talk about a another vehicle, large, I think. I had stopped paying attention by now. I'm going back to sleep.

~

 _'For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted-'_ the priests somber voice was lost among the gushing winds and chattering leaves on knobbly branches of trees in the Autumn. For a man who spent his whole life in the water, the ground seemed an ill-fitting place for him. Everyone wore black and everyone cried.  There are some things that we like to think we could of changed if we weren't scared enough to get our hands dirty. We like to blame ourselves for not being everyone's hero. There is a fine line between caring for others needs and neglecting your own, a line most are too scared to get close to. In this case the line hadn't existed in the first place.

~

 _'He's what?'_ I asked this over and over and over again and again until I couldn't stand to hear them say the word _dead_ anymore. No. Nononononono. You have to be fucking kidding me.

'Rin.' I say. Then I say it again. Rin. Like his name will cease to exist if I stop saying it. Now I shout it, looking in the eyes of my friends and family. RIN. I think that this has to be a joke because something so utterly ridiculous would never of happened. Not to Rin. Rin doesn't die. Rin lives. He lives and he is beautiful and captivating and in the moment and in my every thought. 

I hurl myself out of the hospital bed, ignoring the pain from my injuries because they don't hurt as much as the pain in my heart. The IV drip on it's metal stand drags behind me and my family are calling out to me as I stumble out of the door into the stark hall of this chemical smelling death ward. I just do what my feet tell me to do. Run. I run and I scream. I scream his name so much. 

 _'RIN! RIN WHERE ARE YOU. RIN.'_ I'm probably drawing attention to myself. I'm absolutely, undeniably drawing attention to myself. I am a beat up man running through the maze like hospital screaming the name of my dead boyfriend. My legs ache. I don't think I can run much longer. So I stop. 

Everyone is running down the hall towards me and I can only look at the floor and cry and say his name. Rin rin rin rin rin rin.  _'It's not fair. This isn't fair. I need you why did you leave me Rin. I love you so much. Rin'._ I was caught in Haru's arms before I completely hit the floor after my legs gave way and I became a fountain, waterworks, a river of salty, never ending tears. What a sight. Rin would of told me this was embarrassing and blushed and then kissed me and took me home and fed me chocolate on our couch to make me feel better. Haru tries to tell me it's all going to be ok and that we'll manage somehow and I want to believe him but I also want to punch him because how could he possibly know. That's right, he doesn't.

 _'Fuck off, get the fuck off of me'_ the words are like poison in my mouth, too harsh for my tongue to utter but I said them anyway. I wasn't concerned about my mannerisms anymore. I wasn't going to pretend to be polite. And then just like that I was let free of his embrace and I was cold and I wish I had asked him to come back and to say I was sorry because I don't think I can do this alone. 

_You always said life wasn't like romantic novels Rin but this, this is a fucking tragedy. Even for you._

_~_

'You are every star in the sky and my only sun all at once. You didn't even give me a chance to finally figure you out properly. That can't be fair can it?' Makoto chuckled, empty and regretful. 'I'm so sorry Rin, I'm so damn sorry you wouldn't even believe it. I'll never be able to make it up to you but I'm trying ya'know?' It's hard living when you have nothing left to live for. But I'm gonna live for you, always for you, because I love you.' His voice cracked with the sound of a sob. 'Wherever you are now, you must know I love you.' Makoto placed the flowers on the grave, replace them with the ones from yesterday, he'd kept it up for a week. Daily flowers. He was a man of tradition. If anyone deserved the effort of flowers on their grave every day it was Rin. Because Rin was worthy of every ounce of affection Makoto had to give and he had plenty left.

Turning away from the grave, to cry, because Makoto promised himself he would not cry whilst looking at it, he said 'I'll see you tomorrow, I love you.'

_'-a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.'_

 

 


End file.
